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Great Wall Motors

Great Wall Motors Company Limited is a Chinese automobile manufacturer formed in 1976. The company is named after the Great Wall of China. As of 2010, it is China's largest sport utility vehicle (SUV) producer.In the 2012 market beset by lower demand and curbs on road-going city cars,Great Wall performed well. It rose two spots and ranked as the 8th largest Chinese automaker by making near 676,000 units. While it is possible to rank the company as the 6th largest producer by volume, this is a discrepancy that occurs because some products are classified as both passenger vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles. The export of cars for 2012 stood at 96,500 units.

History

Great Wall Haval H5, in production since 2009

Established in 1976, Great Wall initially manufactured only trucks not producing a saloon car until 2008 due to lack of a government license. The company has been a very successful producer of pickup trucks first reaching top position in the Chinese pickup market in 1998. By 2010, cumulative production of Great Wall pickups had reached 700,000.Making an initial public offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange on 15 December 2003, Great Wall was the first private Chinese auto manufacturer to become a public company. The company is considering listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange as well.Sales in 2010 were measured at less than 400,000 (near 2% market share) with exports a small portion of that figure at little more than 50,000, no increase from 2009 figures. That same year saw the Great Wall Haval H series as the 2nd most-purchased SUV in China although this figure may technically include two discrete models, the Great Wall Haval H3 and the Great Wall Haval H5.Manufacturing for 2011 resulted in 486,800 units, and output this year was the tenth largest of any vehicle maker in China. In 2012 Great Wall decisively pulled ahead of other firms as the fastest grown domestic Chinese car maker, posting gains of 28% from the year before and an increase of net profit of 65.7% from the year before.

Export

Great Wall started selling in Europe in 2006, offering small vans. A lot of 500 SUVs were shipped to Italy in 2006 as well.[19] Great Wall products were first available in the Australian market in 2009, and the company was, as of 2010, the only Chinese car manufacturer to sell in the EU. European sales continue, with the 2011 opening of a factory in Bulgaria that assembles three different models from knock-down kits.

Dakar Rally

The company made appearances at the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Dakar Rally editions, racing with Haval models. Its best ranking was achieved in 2012, when the team finished 7th. It plans to attend subsequent editions.

Operations

The company's former logo is visible on this Wingle at the 2006 Paris Auto Show

China

A Voleex C10 at the 2010 Santiago Autoshow, Chile

With a main manufacturing location in Baoding, Hebei province, Great Wall has expansive plans for future production bases and facilities.Planned production bases include a site in Tianjin, a direct-controlled municipality, that will see completion in 2013 or 2015. The first phase of this facility may become operational in August 2011 adding 250,000 units/year capacity, and when the project reaches completion total capacity will be twice that. Another 500,000 units/year base is also planned and will be built in Baoding. This second Baoding base is intended to become operational by 2013 and is located in Xushui county.

Thailand

Great Wall Motors plans to invest $ 340 million for a new factory in Thailand. The new plant would start with an initial capacity of 100,000 units per year. This was announced in April 2013.

Overseas knock-down factories

There have been at least eight overseas knock-down factories that produce Great Wall models from knock-down kits. Factories exist in Bulgaria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, Ukraine, and Vietnam. It is possible that there are now more than ten such factories.These small workshops are not necessarily affiliated with or owned by Great Wall. Both the Iranian motor company Diar and the Indonesian WICM, an Indomobil Group subsidiary, have assembled Great Wall vehicles from knock-down kits.A new such factory will become operational in 2013 in Brazil, and by 2015 Great Wall plans for the existence of 24 such facilities. These may appear in places such as Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela.

Bulgaria

Together with the Bulgarian company Litex Motors, Great Wall has a production base in Bahovitsa, near the town of Lovech, Bulgaria, that became operational in February 2012. As of 2012, the factory has the capacity to assemble 2,000 cars per year from knock-down kits, but by 2014 that number may increase to 50,000. Initially only making the Voleex C10, the factory plans to later add production of a SUV and a pick-up truck, the Hover 6 and Steed 5, respectively. Plans for a trial run of electric cars were discussed in late 2011.

Technical center

While R&D activities commenced in 1998, in 2010 the company began construction of a technical center in Baoding, Hebei province. Part of an effort to increase R&D investment, the center may become fully operational in 2013, as Great Wall states it will obtain "world-leading R&D... and technical ability" by that year.Currently, component design may rely heavily on foreign technical assistance, and some hard-to-source parts may be provisioned from overseas; the company states it has cooperative agreements with companies such as Autoliv, Delphi Automotive, BorgWarner, Robert Bosch GmbH, the German company Brose, Ricardo plc, TRW Automotive, and Valeo in regards to specific parts such as engines, transmissions, door locks, and airbags, etc. As of 2009, some models used Mitsubishi engines and Siemens electronic systems—both sourced in China.

Products

A Great Wall Pegasus in Russia

List of Great Wall Motors cars models

Sedan

Voleex C30, Vollex C50

City
car

Coolbear, Florid,
Peri, Haval M1, Voleex C10, Voleex C20R

SUV

Haval H3, Haval H5,
Haval H6, Haval M2, Haval M4

MPV

Voleex V80 (Cowry/Changcheng Jiayu)

Pick-up

Deer, Steed 3, Steed
5, Wingle, Wingle 5

Discontinued
models

Safe, Sailor, Sing,
SoCool, Pegasus, Proteus

A wide model range can be had from Great Wall—from light trucks and SUVs to urban runabouts.

Product differentiation

While its entire model line carries the same badge, the company differentiates its SUV, passenger car, and pickup truck lines naming them Haval, Voleex, and Wingle, respectively. This may be reflective of the fact that older models continue to be produced alongside their newer counterparts.

Electric vehicles

Great Wall planned to sell electric vehicles domestically beginning in 2011, and in that year the company stated it had "made quite a huge investment in exploring technologies for new energy autos". An all-electric SUV was showcased at the 2010 Guangzhou Auto Show, and the company is considering a tie-up with electric car maker Coda Automotive.China subsidizes oil and wants its domestic automakers to begin selling electric vehicles for this reason. Some Chinese automakers also see opportunities in less mature electric vehicles because Western companies have yet to develop much of a lead in the technology.

Sales outside China

A Great Wall dealership in Adelaide, Australia

Great Wall products have been available in many places across the globe. These include Africa, Australia, Europe, where an assembly plant in Bulgaria gives duty free access to the European Union, Melanesia, the Middle East, Russia, South America, South Asia, and the South Pacific.Exports may be in the form of knock-down kits as is the case with the assembly plant in Bulgaria where, as of 2012.While Great Wall is engaged in export, nearly 70 percent of sales in 2009 came from central and western China.

After-sale care training

The company offers an after-sales service training course for employees of overseas distributors.

Safety

It is important to note that cars sold in the European Union, the Hover and Deer, may be marketed as commercial vehicles exempting them from EU safety standards. As of 2010, some Great Wall products including passenger vehicles and the new Hover (Haval H5) and Deer (Wingle 5) have obtained an EU whole vehicle type approval, an EU regime that tests road vehicles and approves them for production and sale in Europe. In 2012, the Haval H6 is planned to receive EU certification.

Recalls

An Australian importer recalled Chinese-made cars of several brands including Great Wall due to discoveries of asbestos in gaskets.

Copying claims

The Great Wall Peri (left) and Fiat Panda (right)

Italian automaker Fiat has claimed that a Great Wall A-segment car, the Peri (Jing Ling in China), is a copy of its popular second generation Fiat Panda. A 2008 Turin court ruling substantiated the claim stating that the Great Wall Peri, “doesn’t look like a different car but is a [Fiat] Panda with a different front end.” A copyright infringement case in China did not arrive at the same conclusion.Other Great Wall models may have been copied from those of foreign automakers, too. The Great Wall Florid looks like aToyota ist, the Great Wall Sailor/SA220 looks like an Isuzu Rodeo, and some older Great Wall Hover models may look like Isuzu Axioms, etc.

R&D and Innovation

GWM plans to boost its R&D work force to 10,000 professional technicians by 2015. This plan is supported by an investment of USD 800 Million, in order to achieve a leading position in the automobiles R&D division around the world. In 2010, the company filed around 90 patent and utility model applications.